Image Source: News24
Local – Since tensions around anti-immigration sentiment began building this year, an exodus of migrant workers has left farmers short-staffed and unable to meet daily harvest targets, with effects expected across the food supply chain.
Patrick Williams, local organiser with the Commercial, Stevedoring, Agricultural and Allied Workers Union, said the shortage has exposed years of farmers exploiting foreign labour.
“I won’t say there’s a shortage of workers in South African agriculture, as you can see the unemployment rate is very high. So for the farmers, the reality has stuck with them now, where they have seen they have exploited the migrant workers, [on] piece work that they were doing.”
Locals Know Their Rights
Williams said South Africa’s unemployment crisis meant there was no real shortage of hands willing to work the land. Farmers had grown used to underpaying migrant labourers on piece work and were now struggling because that system had been disrupted.
He put the reluctance to hire South Africans down to accountability. Local workers, he said, know their legal protections better than many migrant labourers do.
“Our local people know what the rate is, what they must be paid, what the basic conditions of employment are, the labour relations. They know [their] rights, and [the] farmers don’t want to use them. That is the reason why they say [there’s a shortage] now, because they have exploited the migrant workers.”
No Room for Compromise
Williams dismissed suggestions of a seasonal work-permit system for migrant labourers, saying unemployed South Africans should be prioritised instead of workers brought in purely for harvest windows.
He said a meeting is scheduled with local government and farmers to address the standoff, though farmers have shown little appetite for meeting workers or government halfway.
“They’re not willing to compromise. There will be a meeting on the 13th of this month, on Thursday, with the local government. So we will have a meeting here, and with the local farmers, so we can see what point we can reach.”
